SimRacing.org.uk

1955 Grand Prix - Round 6 – Aintree

The sixth race in the 1955 Grand Prix series finds us in the outskirts of Liverpool in the north of England. Aintree is undoubtedly famous for the iconic Grand National horse race but for several years it reverberated to the sound of horses of a different kind. The circuit was built in 1954 and hosted the Formula One British Grand Prix five times, in 1955, 1957, 1959, 1961 and 1962. Stirling Moss, driving a Mercedes, won his first British Grand Prix at Aintree in 1955.  It was the first time a British driver had won his home Grand Prix. The first British driver / British car victory in a British Grand Prix was also at Aintree in 1957, when Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks shared a Vanwall. Quite why Grand Prix racing stopped at Aintree is unclear.  The close proximity of housing may have been a factor but the circuit would no doubt have needed to improve safety standards.  The original track can still be seen, and driven on, today. The lack of any run-off areas in the section to the west of the Melling Road all too apparent. The section to the east of the Melling Road which is wide open and relatively safe is still in regular use for motorcycle racing.
 
Carefully read the rules on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6).

Race list	iGOR
Server	UKGPL_4
IP address	95.149.71.205
Date	29-07-2018
Track	Aintree (http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=1284#entry8476)
Mod	55F1 with 60fpsV2newmod
Damage	PRO long
Race time	~ 21:30 UK time
Qualifying	20:45 UK time - 45 minutes
Race length	24 laps
Replay	here (ftp://ftp.ukgpl9.co.uk:32122/Season33/55GP)

Please restrict chat to emergency messages only including at the end of the race until ALL drivers still racing have crossed the line.

Password: see above (#post_event_password)
Driver lists can be found on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6)

Handicapping and chassis allocation.
This season the 1955 Grand Prix cars will be using a token system which allows drivers to purchase any chassis of their choice for a given number of tokens as published on the championship standings page (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?action=LM2R&group=639&theme=6). Drivers classed as Amateurs will be allocated an additional 10 tokens.  The token allocation will not be managed in SRou this season so (unlike the 67F1 Works and 67F1 Privateer divisions) the tokens available to each driver will not appear in the championship table (when the mouse pointer is hovered over the driver's total).  Rather, the available tokens will be published in the race announcement. See table below.

Available Tokens:
Note: These are the tokens available to each driver before the 10 tokens are added for making the race start.

Driver	Tokens	Status
bagrupp	17	Pro
Clive Loynes	10	Pro
Doni Yourth	30	Pro
EvilClive	8	Pro
fpolicardi	6	Am
francesco	13	Am
Phil Thornton	5	Am
DLogan	14	Am
Gareth	10	Am
Jeep	2	Am
Uli	6	Pro
FullMetalGasket	60	Pro
Will Tway	5	Pro
Baab	18	Am
Cookie	5	Pro
Samb	10	Pro
Ziu Bacubacu	5	Pro

Could be good points for finishing this one!

It's diabolically difficult to pass someone in similar machinery unless you get lucky and have brakes when they don't!

Practice server is up on IGOR.

IP Address is 95.149.71.205

That's it I'm done, I officially retire from this series. Blew the engine on the start line, I've not managed more than a few laps in this series other than at 1 round due to discos, screen freezes etc. I really like them but can't be bothered with them any longer.

TTFN
John.

There goes my Championship fight then.
Cheers :(

Managed to string six laps of mostly on track (mostly) together, a new PB with these cars :P before finding the sticky bales outside of T4  :(.

I've loaded the chassis the drivers used into the token calculator spreadsheet.  For the next race the available tokens will be as declared in the table below (the table will also appear in the next race announcement).  The calculated values are automated but selecting the cars is a manual process so please check your tokens to make sure I haven't made a silly error.  There was no token overspend for this round so no one is disqualified.

Available Tokens:
Note: These are the tokens available to each driver before the 10 tokens are added for making the race start.

Driver	Tokens	Status
bagrupp	17	Pro
Clive Loynes	8	Pro
Doni Yourth	30	Pro
EvilClive	13	Pro
fpolicardi	6	Am
francesco	11	Am
Phil Thornton	0	Am
DLogan	12	Am
Gareth	10	Am
Jeep	7	Am
Uli	6	Pro
FullMetalGasket	70	Pro
Will Tway	5	Pro
Baab	18	Am
Cookie	15	Pro
Samb	10	Pro
Ziu Bacubacu	5	Pro

Had a reasonable pace here in the Lancia but I had a couple of spins that left me pointing at the hay bales. When I tried to select reverse my G25 H-Shifter wouldn't engage. Managed to get it working after a dozen or so attempts but I lost to much time and I couldn't fight my way back to a podium place.

Grats to the Clives, you were too quick for me. Well done to Fran on a solid podium place.

I'll have to have a go at cleaning my H-Shifter before Tuesday's race. 

My only one error have broken your dream,sorry Tim.On 24 laps it was the only one spin,but was a strong spin. Now i must undesrtand why because to me seem to have approached the curve in the usual way.


Thank you Phil but you was clearly more fast,i was ,excluding the spin,more regular.

Very well done Fran, a great result for the Soggies!  ;-)

In practice I managed a lap early on and then set about checking fuel consumption and sorting my brake pattern for the race.  This has to be different to the brake usage in qually.


Being mindful of the glass engines that they put in these things I was trying hard not to over rev the thing on the grid or when the flag dropped.  As a result I bogged down and Evil was able to beat me to turn one.

I didn't want to follow closely to start with as that just buggers the brakes.  But when my brakes got into a bad way anyway, in the opening laps, I let him get away a tad too far.  After the chasing pack had fallen away I set about trying to catch him but I had left myself too much to do.  I was going just as fast as my brakes would allow and at times I was on the point of "no brakes", at T4, in my attempts to close the gap.

I find that T4 is the point in the lap where the brakes are at their lowest ebb.  It's the third of three corners that each require application of the brakes.  The rest of the lap only needs the odd dab here and there.

Congratulations to Evil on a fine win and, once more, very well done to Fran.   :thumbup2:

Was not home before 11 p.m. german time

It was an interesting race for me.
 Zero practice, but I had a setup for a previous race that seemed to work well for the Connaught. Frustrated that prib was suggesting that a sub 2:00 was possible, but small mistakes prevented me claiming that sort of time.

I almost bogged down off the grid like Clive , and I had to dip the clutch to get the revs up again and that allowed me to out drag Mr Loynes to T1. I fully expected his Maserati to drag him back onto my tailpipes and I would be an easy pass down the straight. But by living "on the edge" for the first few laps I was able to pull away and establish a nice comfort gap. ;D
The advantage of running in clear air is that you can judge your braking and the lines through corners without having to compromise them for another car. I found that when I did a fast lap the brakes were in better condition as I crossed the line than when I was 1.5-2 secs slower??

Once I had a lead of around 300mtrs I tried to ease off and simply respond if Clive threatened to get too close. Easier said than done and I think on one lap the gap halved  :o...which was a shock! Pushed for a couple of laps to stretch my lead again and all was well until I looked at the fuel.......17 laps to go, using 0.5 galls per lap. Amount in tank  7.9 galls??!!!  

The rest of the race was a tactical nightmare as I tried to maintain my slender lead by short shifting and coasting into corners. Clive was appearing more frequently in my mirrors and the gap was down to less than 100mtrs in places. By driving very cautiously I saved around 0,75 galls and had enough "spare" fuel on the last lap to cross the line with 0.2 galls left and the engine just beginning to misfire. Had Clive's Maserati got within attack distance I would not have been able to put up any sort of fight,,,,, but don't tell him that  ::).

Grats to Clive, Fran and Phil for making it to the flag and commiserations to those who did not.

Idem, sorry.

Moderation published.